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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Taking Care of Business at School

Andre Van Niekerk makes no secret of the fact that his private consulting business paid a lot better than the world of education. But then again financial remuneration isn’t what drove the 60-year old Van Niekerk to take a post as the new dean of the school of business at Woodbury University in Burbank. One only needs to take a cursory glance at Van Niekerk’s resume to see the South African native’s passion for learning. A quadruple major (history, religion, music, psychology) in college, Van Niekerk went on to receive a double masters (education administration, consulting) from Andrews University in Michigan, before going on to pursue a doctorate in administration in higher education from Michigan State. For most of his career, Van Niekerk has been involved in both the business and education worlds, spending 22 years in health care administration, serving as the vice president of marketing and strategic planning for both Unihealth America and National Medical Enterprises (now Tenet Health Care). During his tenure in the health care industry, Van Niekerk also was the director of marketing and external communication for the UCLA Medical Center. But during his lengthy stint in the business world, Van Niekerk never lost sight of his desire to educate, teaching at various institutions throughout his career. His most recent position in education prior to Woodbury was associate dean in charge of the executive MBA program at Pepperdine University’s school of business. At Pepperdine, Van Niekerk helped the school get AACSB accreditation, considered the gold standard for business schools. Van Niekerk left Pepperdine three years ago to privately consult, but couldn’t resist returning to his roots when he heard of the available Woodbury position. Question: What was there about the position at Woodbury that specifically intrigued you? Answer: The way in which the job description was written for the dean’s position gave me a very clear sense that they were serious about the resources that they would allocate to facilitate growth. I’d been familiar with Woodbury from my time at Pepperdine and knew that it was a player in business education, as well as being known for its schools of architecture and fashion design. I was also attracted to Woodbury’s sense of history. The institution was started in 1884 and it is the second oldest private college established in California, as well as being the second oldest continuous business program west of the Mississippi. When I interviewed, it became quickly clear that the school was committed to making it a significant player in the L.A. market. Q: What will your first order of business be? A: I’m still learning and understanding how the business school operates. I’m trying to learn about the faculty and make sure the quality is good and getting better. I want to make sure that our offerings resonate with the students who come to us for education and that they’re practical. Secondly, I want to get the school started on the AACSB accreditation process. We have hired a consultant to help us in that process specifically for the business school. We have to do an application which takes three months, then it goes to a jury and you state your case to them. Than they appoint a mentor to us. After that, if the application is accepted, a second part is that along with the mentor, we’ll establish a strategic plan for the next several years. They will measure us against that plan and if we do that successfully, in four or five years, we’ll get the accreditation. Q: How can you raise the public profile of Woodbury? A: To me, Woodbury is the best kept secret around. I call it the jewel of the Valley. It’s on a beautiful little campus with room for expansion and growth. In order to raise our profile, I’ll need to keep out in front of the community and the press. Also my role as the dean will be to get out in front of local business professionals, as well as speaking to various civic groups, to tell the Woodbury story. We need to them let know that Woodbury is a viable option that makes economic sense, with small classes and a great deal of attention for students. Q: In your eyes, what is the Woodbury story? A: The Woodbury story is one of roots in business education. We started in 1884 as a business college that taught secretarial science classes and very quickly started graduating accountants for the L.A. market at the time. Since then it has continued to provide quality business graduates for the L.A. area. For me, the Woodbury story isn’t what it did in the past but what it does in today’s environment. When people are looking at proximity, they aren’t looking to travel across the city in order to get an education. We’re looking at drawing much more from the Valley, as well as Valencia and Santa Clarita. Q: How do you plan to convince top students to come to Woodbury, rather than the other prominent business schools in the Los Angeles area? A: We need to make our presence known. That’s the number one priority. But also, we need to convince the students that the curriculum and the teaching quality at Woodbury, is as good or better than the larger institutions. We are not a research institution. Our faculty respect researchers and respect publishing, but our emphasis is on the practical approach to business. Many of our faculty also consult, and with that they bring real life experience into the classroom. When they teach from the text and teach theory, they can take a recent example that they jut learned to illustrate their points. To me, that is a very practical and efficient way to teach. It brings the classroom to life. Also at Woodbury, we have smaller classes, allowing students to get a great deal more attention than if they attended a large research university. Once a student looks at the options and sees our quality and size and cost, we can be a very viable alternative. Q: Are there any specific obstacles that you expect to face? A: The main obstacle probably would be to lack proper resources. However, I’ve received promises from the administration and the board that that won’t be a problem. The other thing is, like any organization there is an embedded culture. The culture at Woodbury is very open and familial. However, I would like to look at changing the culture within the business school to be more entrepreneurial and more fast-paced. I want us to be more flexible in terms of changing with market forces. Q: Are their any specific new courses that you’re already thinking about launching? A: I think that an executive education program would serve us well in the future. I also believe that we haven’t taken advantage of the neighbors in our immediate area, such as the entertainment business. There are several niche programs that we could develop in that regard. In the literature of today, we are seeing that business schools are getting more creative than they had been in the past. Many schools are creating creativity classes in their curriculum. At Woodbury, it’s a no-brainer because we have two schools involved in art. We have the school of Architecture, which is one of the most creative things that we use every day Also we have the school of design. We have rich resources right on our campus to collaborate with. I see the time coming in the future where we may even cross-teach in terms of business and creativity. Q: What are you looking forward to the most? A: Forging an extremely strong team of educators. I’m looking forward to collaborating with them to be flexible, creative and innovative. We need to teach students well and the serve the community at large. Q: What imprint would you like to leave on Woodbury? A: I want to help us reach the gold standard of accreditation, as well as proving that we are indeed one of the most viable alternatives for business education in the greater L.A. area. I want to have faculty and administrators say that I made a difference that was positive and that I never took myself too seriously. I also want them to say that I worked with humility and purpose.

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